Bears game was learning experience for Eagles 'D'

PHILADELPHIA — — Bill Davis admits it was difficult to sit and watch his defense get shredded on third down against the Bears last Friday night, so the Eagles defensive coordinator bit hard on his lip and resisted the temptation to do something about it.

It was, he said, all in the name of evaluation.

"Yeah, third down wasn't a good night for us," said Davis on Monday, just hours before the Eagles set out for a week in New England for three days of practices with the Patriots.

"But one of the products of that is I really am trying to evaluate. It's harder than you think to hold to base four-man rushes and coverage calls to evaluate a four-man rush and evaluate our coverage. I knew halfway through that we were struggling on third down, and we were losing different one-on-one battles, but you can go to the pressure package, if you want, but it takes you away from the evaluation process. So the whole goal is to evaluate and grow the players, and that's what we're working on right now. It hurt a little bit on third down."

Oh, it more than just a little bit. Try 10 first downs in 17 tries for the Bears, which is a whopping success rate of 59 percent. Five of those first downs came on plays that required 10-or-more yards. Third-down woes for this defense aren't exclusive to just Friday night. Getting off the field was problematic last year, too.

"You want the guys to win the one on one battles and have a couple of opportunities," said Davis. "An outside rusher or inside rusher, they have a couple opportunities to set up some moves, to work some moves on that tackle, so there is a lot of thinking that goes into staying basic in the preseason believe it or not."

The Eagles' first team didn't record a sack, but Vinny Curry got one against the second team and Brandon Graham had several pressures.

"We need to be better in pass rush and better in coverage," said linebacker Connor Barwin. "It's that simple, just all of us working together."

D improvements

While third downs remain problematic, tackling and stopping the run looked strong against the Bears. At least stronger than last year at this point in time, said Davis.

"I thought we were a lot farther along than we were last year," he said. "I thought the run defense and the tackling are two areas that we took big steps. If you compare preseason game one this year to preseason game one last year, we still missed too many tackles. One of the encouraging things was we missed with the right leverage. We had head placement and we still missed. That's got to get fixed. But the fundamental part of it we weren't missing because of arm tackles and heads in the wrong position. The thought of being in the right position was much better."

Center of attention

Practicing against the Patriots means a solid match-up to watch between Eagles center Jason Kelce and New England's five-time Pro Bowler and 11-year veteran anchor Vince Wilfork at nose tackle.

"It's great anytime you can go up and get reps against another guy," said Kelce. "For me get to play against one of the best in the league in Vince Wilfork and be able to hone my craft against somebody completely different, it's like getting an extra preseason game even though we're playing them in a preseason game. The practices are a little bit more challenging from a mental aspect."

Watkins' short memory

Rookie corner Jaylen Watkins was praised by Davis for being able to respond quickly when adversity struck in the form of a 73-yard touchdown he allowed against the Bears. Later in the game, Watkins made an athletic interception to thwart a Chicago drive.

"I love the mental toughness he showed in coming back," said Davis. "He had a bad jam (on the TD). In the NFL, you pay for your mistakes, and it's something that he's learned a valuable lesson. He's a very smart young man. I don't see him making that mistake again, and I love the way he bounced back. Took him a little bit. He had a couple other stumbles before he regained composure, but he regained it. And that is growth of a young guy."

Added Watkins: "Rome wasn't in built in day. Every day is a process for all of us, even the veteran guys."

Injury report

With Monday's practice being simply a walk-through, it was difficult to gauge which players were participating. So it remains to be seen if receivers Riley Cooper and Jeff